other,
would have quelled these insurrections with the strong arm of military
power.

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE BASTILE.]

The king at last was compelled, in order to protect the royal family
from insult, to encamp his army around his palaces; and long trains
of artillery and of cavalry incessantly traversed the streets of
Versailles, to prop the tottering monarchy. As Maria Antoinette, from
the windows, looked down upon these formidable bands, and saw the
crowd of generals and colonels who filled the saloons of the palace,
her fainting courage was revived. The sight of these soldiers, called
to quell the insurgent people, roused the Parisians to the intensest
fury. "To arms! to arms! the king's troops are coming to massacre us,"
resounded through the streets of Paris in the gloom of night, in tones
which caused the heart of every peaceful citizen to quake with terror.
The infuriated populace hurled themselves upon the few troops who were
in Paris. Many of the soldiers of the king threw down their arms and
fraternized with the people. Others were withdrawn, by order of Louis,
to add to the forces which were surrounding his person at Versailles.
Paris was thus left at the mercy of the mob. The arsenals were
ransacked, the powder magazines were broken open, pikes were forged,
and in a day, as it were, all Paris was in arms. Thousands of the
noble and the wealthy fled in consternation from these scenes of
ever-accumulating peril, and bands of ferocious men and women, from
all the abodes of infamy, with the aspect and the energy of demons,
ravaged the streets.

When the morning of the 14th of March, 1789, dawned upon the city,
a scene of terror and confusion was witnessed which baffles all
description. In the heart of Paris there was a prison of terrible
celebrity, in whose dark dungeons many victims of oppression and crime
had perished. The Bastile, in its gloomy strength of rock and iron, was
the great instrument of terror with which the kings of France had, for
centuries, held all restless spirits in subjection. Now, the whole
population of Paris seemed to be rolling like an inundation toward this
apparently impregnable fortress, resolved to batter down its execrated
walls. "To the Bastile! to the Bastile!" was the cry which resounded
along the banks of the Seine, and through every street of the insurgent
metropolis; and men, women, and boys poured on and poured on, an
interminable host, choking every avenue with th